March 2025 - What are you reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just finished "The Guest" by Emma Cline---about a young grifter sex worker who spends a week drifting around the Hamptons after her sugar daddy kicks her out. I got caught up in the stress of the narrative and read it in one day. It's an intense read that's unsatisfying in a good way---the ending opens up interpretations that can leave you questioning some or all of what you just read.

Yes- I read this a bit back and we had a good discussion on it here. I didn't like the book but agree about the ending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"The Voyage Home" by Pat Barker. It's the last in her Trojan War trilogy and came out a few months ago.

I still think "The Silence of the Girls," the first book concerning Briseis and the start of the war, is the strongest in the trilogy.

Would you recommend the trojan war trilogy? Any new or unique takes from the same old story?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just finished "Bright Lights, Big City" by Mary Kay Andrews.

It is about a family who has run a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina for several decades. They spend every December at a designated lot in NYC selling the trees. This year, The brother and sister, both in their 30's, are running the Christmas tree lot. They both fall in love, make new friends, have adventures.

I downloaded it from Libby. I have read every book Mary Kay Andrews has written.

I think you mean Bright Lights, Big Christmas. Bright Lights, Big City is a very different book!

Oops! Yes, I meant to say that the book was called Bright Lights, Big Christmas. Thanks for catching that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Leaving Atlanta" by Tayari Jones.

The protagonists are children living in Atlanta in the time of the child murders. I've just started it, but so far it's good. It's coming on the tails of a book I enjoyed immensely ("A Gentleman in Moscow"), so I'm trying hard not to compare.

All of Tayari’s books are so much better than “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

Perhaps. I have a soft spot for 20th Century history, so that book really appealed.

You should try The Lincoln Highway. I loved it, by the same author as A Gentleman in Moscow.

That's funny, I read The Lincoln Highway because I loved A Gentleman in Moscow-- it wasn't bad, but it didn't intrigue me the same way Gentleman did.

[Anonymous]

I loved Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's typical of his work in that it takes a historical narrative and fictionalizes/ fantasizes it a bit. In this case, the Chinese Tang Dynasty.

And so I'm reading the follow-up, River of Stars. It's the kind of book you can read for hours. Great storytelling, effective character development, strong plot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just finished "The Guest" by Emma Cline---about a young grifter sex worker who spends a week drifting around the Hamptons after her sugar daddy kicks her out. I got caught up in the stress of the narrative and read it in one day. It's an intense read that's unsatisfying in a good way---the ending opens up interpretations that can leave you questioning some or all of what you just read.

I really enjoyed this one. I think it's Cline's strongest book. I also read it in late August while in a beach town, and it just so perfectly captured the slightly surreal feeling of the end of the season in such a place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The Voyage Home" by Pat Barker. It's the last in her Trojan War trilogy and came out a few months ago.

I still think "The Silence of the Girls," the first book concerning Briseis and the start of the war, is the strongest in the trilogy.

Would you recommend the trojan war trilogy? Any new or unique takes from the same old story?

I could write an essay on this, haha! It depends on what you're read and enjoyed. There's a glut of Greek retellings from female perspectives right now, but I think Pat Barker is one of the stronger writers in this genre. She was listed for the Booker prize for "Silence of the Girls," which can stand alone as a book. The trilogy follow more minor female Iliad characters.

Madeline Miller's "Song of Achilles" and "Circe" are both extremely popular, and they're solid novels. "Circe" is kind of a fun perspective that is not entirely focused on the Trojan War. Natalie Haynes is also pretty prevalent in this genre and has written "A Thousand Ships" (pretty good) as well as individual novels about Medusa (pretty strong), Medea (haven't read), and Jocasta (eh). Jennifer Saint also writes individual novels about Greek women, like "Elektra," "Ariadne," and "Atalanta." I don't feel strongly about any of those novels; they were entertaining but perhaps not groundbreaking in their perspective anymore. I enjoyed "Clytemnestra" by Costanza Casati.

Colm Toibon wrote "House of Names" as a retelling of the Oresteia (so immediately post-Trojan War). "Ithaca" by Claire North is about what was going on while Odysseus was away, and it is also the start of a trilogy. I quite liked it, though it's fairly dense comparatively.

Ok so finally, I want to put in a plug for "Bright Air Black," by David Vann. It's an utterly bizarre, surreal novel about Medea and Jason and the Argonauts (so, well before the Trojan War). It does not take a contemporary perspective, and in fact makes clear how alien the Greeks' thinking and behavior would be to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Leaving Atlanta" by Tayari Jones.

The protagonists are children living in Atlanta in the time of the child murders. I've just started it, but so far it's good. It's coming on the tails of a book I enjoyed immensely ("A Gentleman in Moscow"), so I'm trying hard not to compare.

I’d love to know what you think of this book! I’m reading Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones right now and am really enjoying it. (I read An American Marriage several years ago when it was getting a ton of buzz, but TBH I am liking Silver Sparrow a lot more.) I was in Atlanta for a work trip last week and saw Leaving Atlanta prominently displayed at an independent bookstore there. I was thinking of adding it to my TBR.

I really liked it. I too was in 5th grade in 1979, and I think she really captured what it was like to be that awkward tween age at that time in America. But for the heavy and tragic circumstances of the murders, it would be a great YA book. At its core, it’s a book about children that captures their voices really well. She’s a good writer, and I thought it was clever how she presented the story through three narrators in the third, second, and first person, respectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Leaving Atlanta" by Tayari Jones.

The protagonists are children living in Atlanta in the time of the child murders. I've just started it, but so far it's good. It's coming on the tails of a book I enjoyed immensely ("A Gentleman in Moscow"), so I'm trying hard not to compare.

All of Tayari’s books are so much better than “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

Perhaps. I have a soft spot for 20th Century history, so that book really appealed.

You should try The Lincoln Highway. I loved it, by the same author as A Gentleman in Moscow.

That's funny, I read The Lincoln Highway because I loved A Gentleman in Moscow-- it wasn't bad, but it didn't intrigue me the same way Gentleman did.

This was my feeling too. It was a fine book, but I really loved Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow.

[Anonymous]

I loved Margot’s Got Money Troubles, which I read recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Leaving Atlanta" by Tayari Jones.

The protagonists are children living in Atlanta in the time of the child murders. I've just started it, but so far it's good. It's coming on the tails of a book I enjoyed immensely ("A Gentleman in Moscow"), so I'm trying hard not to compare.

All of Tayari’s books are so much better than “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

Perhaps. I have a soft spot for 20th Century history, so that book really appealed.

You should try The Lincoln Highway. I loved it, by the same author as A Gentleman in Moscow.

That's funny, I read The Lincoln Highway because I loved A Gentleman in Moscow-- it wasn't bad, but it didn't intrigue me the same way Gentleman did.

This was my feeling too. It was a fine book, but I really loved Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow.

Me too, I looooved those books and Table for Two. I started to really like Lincoln Highway about halfway through.

[Anonymous]

Orbital and omg I love it so much.

Still making my way through Moby Dick. Slow going because for every paragraph I read straight through there are 4-5 that I need to restart — a problem of my own attention span, not the book. The book is brilliant. FYI I will likely still be posting Melville in May, but by god I am going to finish! (Moby Dick, the book, has become my white whale lol).

[Anonymous]

Murder at the end of the world. I’m not usually interested in future world-type stuff, but so far this has been interesting.

[Anonymous]

Just finished Challenger, by Adam Higginbotham, after reading Midnight in Chernobyl a few weeks ago. I knew much more about the Challenger accident going into this book than I did about Chernobyl, but it was still such a compelling read. It was like the experience of reading Robert K. Massie's biographical classic Nicholas and Alexandra, where you know it's heading for a horrible ending but you're enveloped in the journey to get there anyway.

[Anonymous]

East of Eden. I read it at 19, was way too stupid to get it or appreciate it and I didn’t remember much so I picked it up this week. The writing about the Salinas Valley alone made me stop and reread several lines. It’s genuinely beautiful.